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The global pharmaceutical industry is navigating a period of profound change, characterized by rapid scientific innovation, an evolving regulatory environment and a paradigm shift in patient expectations. With breakthrough treatments being launched at an accelerated rate, and patients demanding more personalized and holistic care, the traditional healthcare model is being redefined. In this context, Astellas is proactively implementing a far-reaching strategic plan to reshape its corporate culture, redefining its core Values and Behaviors and systematically embedding them across its entire global workforce.

Tirell Hendley, Executive Director, Human Resources for Astellas, leads a group that is responsible for strategic workforce planning – everything from employee engagement, talent management and performance management to learning, development and organizational transformation. In a recent interview he outlined the thinking behind the program and the VALUE for patients the company believes it will deliver.

From 60+ directives to three core mindsets

A key strength of Astellas is the innovative spirit of its employees, who are passionate about trying new things and launching initiatives that energize the organization. A natural consequence of this creative energy, however, was that it sometimes proved challenging to streamline these efforts. Over the years, this led to a wide range of behavior models being adopted organically in various parts of the company.

"We had a leadership behavior model, we had an employee expectation behavior model, we had commercial employee behavior, R&D related behaviors, a partially sunset Values model," says Tirell.  "In total, we discovered there were more than 60 behaviors employees were asked to align to." Realizing that employees could not be expected to unite around such a confusing number of directives, Tirell and his team collaborated with Astellas' executive committee to consolidate and redefine the company's Values and Behaviors.

Their redesign process started in an executive committee workshop where Astellas' most senior leaders discussed the behaviors needed to be a high performing organization in today's world. They reviewed each of the existing Values and Behaviors and whittled them down to what they saw as the three most relevant and important.

"Initially," Tirell explains, "these were innovation, integrity and excellence. However, we realized that in some cultures, 'excellence' might be perceived as the need to be perfect in order to move something forward. And so, at the recommendation of our Representative Director, Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer Katsuyoshi Sugita, we decided to use 'impact' instead, because it was really about the power to create tangible change, not about being perfect."

Tirell explains the thinking behind each of the three Values. "Innovation means continuously imagining new ways to create and deliver VALUE for patients. Integrity is simply about always doing what is right. And Impact reflects our desire to take purposeful action and make a difference."

The blueprint for action: Defining behaviors and leadership's role

The next step was to distill from those three Values the actions needed to bring them to life. Tirell's team took a broad selection of key leaders from across Astellas and arranged a series of workshops for them. 

"We deliberately chose a very diverse group of people," explains Tirell. "A mixture of genders and demographics, a cross-selection of more experienced employees and less tenured employees, all from different functions and regions. We wanted to ensure their input would be truly reflective of our diverse organization."

Discussions among the workshop participants resulted in a consensus around five Organizational Behaviors: having "Courage," acting with a "Sense of Urgency," delivering "One Astellas," a focus on "Outcomes" mentality, and personal and team "Accountability." The participants then discussed and agreed on how these should be brought to life across the organization, and their final recommendations were shared with the company's executive committee and board of directors for approval.

His team subsequently came up with example employee actions for each of the five Behaviors. As an example, for "Courage" the expected employee Behaviors and actions were defined as "speaking up and challenging the status quo" and "taking intelligent risks and learning from failure." 

"One Astellas" resolved to address the challenges typically faced by large and complex organizations head-on. Employees are encouraged to embrace and leverage diverse perspectives, to collaborate willingly with colleagues in other functions and geographies, and to resolve any conflicts constructively and respectfully.

Under "Accountability," the team focused on traits such as ownership, integrity and trust. Employees are encouraged to take full responsibility for the completion of assigned tasks, projects, and outcomes, and to assume ownership of the results of the decisions they take. They are additionally expected to show dependability by following through on commitments and by always acting with integrity.

"We recognized that these Behaviors would be more likely to stick if leaders set an example by encouraging and developing them," says Tirell. "For each behavior we therefore came up with a matching set of supportive actions we would expect from leaders."

For "Sense of Urgency," leaders are now encouraged to quickly remove superfluous barriers that slow down their teams' progress and to empower them to take informed and conclusive actions. They are additionally expected to inspire high performance and integrity by connecting team efforts to larger strategic objectives and, importantly, to the needs of patients.

Under "Outcome Focus," Leaders are expected to prioritize activities and tasks that have the most significant impact on successful results, and to solve problems by seeking and proposing ways to simplify processes, data and technology. 

A 'homegrown' strategy for lasting change

"From there," Tirell explains, "we worked with change management experts and used some of our internal brain power to start thinking through how could we make them visually appealing? What is the narrative? How could we showcase them internally, externally?  How could we make these Behaviors stick?"

Employees are often understandably skeptical about exhortations to adopt new Behaviors, often seeing them as just the latest HR fad. Explains Tirell, "We stressed that we would not change these for the next two to three years, which was a great way to ensure they would stick."

It also helped that all of the recommended Values and Behaviors had come from within Astellas, not from an external consultancy, says Tirell. "It was important that they truly reflected our organization and were not an off-the-shelf selection from a consultancy. We wanted these Values to be 'homegrown' and customized wholly to who we are and what we stand for."

Before releasing the output to Astellas employees, Tirell's team tapped into the company's global HR teams and its global network of staff with communications responsibilities. "We tested everything with them—our visuals, our change plans and our messaging—to make sure these would resonate."

But how will this new set of Values and Behaviors benefit patients, given that very few Astellas employees actually interact with patients? Explains Tirell, "At the center of everything we do is our VISION, "on the forefront of healthcare change to turn innovative science into VALUE for patients." That VISION is brought to life by our mindsets, which are our three Values of Integrity, Innovation and Impact.  However, it is only by our consistent actions of demonstrating Courage, Sense of Urgency, One Astellas, Outcome Focus and Accountability, that we can bring those mindsets to life and therefore positively impact patient lives. This is something every employee can do."

In the rapidly evolving world of medical care, Astellas is ensuring the focus across the whole company remains firmly on delivering positive outcomes for patients.

This story continues in the next article. In the sequel, we explore how the new Organizational Values and Behaviors was strategically embedded throughout Astellas' diverse and global organization. Click here to read the next article.